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hearken to the divine voice as a Father: and can I be restored?" What is the

answer of God? "Return unto me, O backsliding people, and I will return unto you; and I will love you freely: so shall you render to me the calves of your lips." The returning backslider knows it: and if you ask him for the reason of his comforts, he can give it :—

"Whence to me this truth and love?

Ask my Advocate above:

See the cause in Jesus' face,

Now before the throne of grace.

Jesus speaks, and pleads his blood:
He disarms the wrath of God:
Now my Father's bowels move,
Justice kindles into love."

I am very sorry I cannot conclude the subject, and represent afflictions as preventives. I have thought it right to devote a discourse to the subject, because it has to do with the whole economy of life, and it is of the utmost importance to have clear and just views on the universally interesting subject of affliction.

Let me say, therefore, in conclusion, what a cure there is here for murmuring. You repine at your afflictions, and you might do so if they were a thing of chance; if they were only to trouble you, and vex you, and prevent you from being happy, and nothing more. But they have a design, and a tendency, and a use about them-to bring you to a greater happiness than you ever could have in their absence.

"All nature is but art unknown to thee;

All chance direction which thou canst not see;
All discord harmony not understood;

All partial evil universal good."

Afflictions are designed to bring you to the means that are necessary for your safety, your improvement, and your future bliss. They break your cisterns of earthly happiness, but it is only to lead you to the fountain. They hedge up your way with thorns; but it is only to keep you from the paths of the destroyer, and to bring you into the heavenly way, that leads to happiness and life. They tear that silken net that wealth and ease were weaving over thee, but only to entangle thy soul, and to prevent its escape to higher and to better regions.

Therefore ye unconverted persons who are not at present the subjects of affliction, have no cause to boast of your freedom; for in reality it is a freedom from a salutary discipline, which an unconverted state renders necessary, to prevent it from being their ruin. And those unconverted persons, who have been under affliction should ask whether their afflictions have answered their intended end. Have they brought you to God? Have they, by the co-operation of the Spirit of Truth, brought you to Jesus Christ for recovery from guilt, and to the blessed Spirit for recovery from pollution, and into the way of righteousness as a way of peace: have they had this effect? I am speaking to persons to-night in an unconverted state, who have been thus dealt with for many years; and I ask you seriously, What is the result? Have all these afflictions, disappointments, and vicissitudes of life had their end? Have you become the people of God? O, it is very necessary that you should answer that

question, because if that be the case, they will in time lose their merciful design, and alter their character. Instead of correctives they will become avengers; the rod will be turned into the sword: and if they have failed to soften, they will be sent in future to harden you the more. Was not that the case with the plagues in Egypt? The first was sent to see whether Pharaoh would reform; but he hardened his heart under the first, and God sent the rest to harden him still more. And if your afflictions are in vain for a long course of time to bring you to God, then one of two things is very likely to follow-(and I know not which is the worst)—either the total withdrawment of affliction to let you go on in ease, and to lull you into a fatal lethargy; or else to drive affliction upon you, to exasperate you, and to goad you to destruction. I wish you might think of this; and more especially as the year is drawing to an end, and as your days are drawing to an end. It is only this evening that I have heard of a very affecting event: a young man, in the prime of life, the brother of an individual present, thirty-four years of age, and in perfect health yesterday week, was taken suddenly with a fit, and never had a moment's sanity, till on Tuesday morning he died: and over that death we must drop a veil.

I hold a book in my hand which contains an affecting incident in reference to the invalidity of death-bed repentances; and I will read it for the purpose of guarding you once more against that deceitful hope. This very book is a striking proof and illustration of what I had meant to insist on-the beneficent effects that may come out of an affliction that was sent for wise purposes. It is the production of a respected minister among the Congregational denomination in this country. An individual, intrusted with a legacy, which afforded this minister, by the interest of it, fifty pounds per annum, in addition to a small salary among a poor congregation-that individual turned out a hypocrite; he became a bankrupt, and it was found he had never invested the property, and the few debts that the minister had contracted, in prospect of receiving the payment of the interest, he was obliged afterwards to pay: and the contention of the matter involved him in a sum of much more than one hundred pounds. His church took a deep interest in the cause, but he was obliged to borrow the sum, and he knew not how to obtain it in an honourable

way.

His family required support. God put it in his heart to write this book -"The Sick Visitor's Assistant ;" and he has submitted to the rather degrading, though honest, employment of selling them himself, by which he has almost realized the sum he wanted. In stating the case to me, he said, "Who could have foreseen, that such a disappointment or affliction would have been for good? But it has; it has made me know that I can write so as to interest the public; it has thrown me on my resources; it has raised affection for me in my church; filled my church with individuals from the neighbourhood; and made me a happier minister than ever I was before." This is one of the anecdotes contained in the book: "A pious clergyman, for more than twenty years, kept an account of the sick persons he visited during that period. The parish was thickly peopled, and, of course, many of his parishioners, during his residence, were carried to their graves. A considerable number, however, recovered; and amongst these, two thousand, who, in immediate prospect of death, gave those evidences of a change of heart, which, in the judgment of charity, were connected with everlasting salvation, supposing them to have died under the

circumstances referred to. As, however, the tree is best known by its fruits, the sincerity of their death-bed repentance was yet to be tried, and all the promises and vows thus made, to be fulfilled. Now out of these two thousand persons (who were evidently at the point of death, and had given evidence of a sound repentance)-out of these two thousand persons who recovered, two, only two"-allow me to repeat it-two, only two, "by their future lives, proved that their repentance was sincere, their conversion genuine. One thousand nine hundred and ninety-eight returned to their former carelessness, indifference, and sinfulness: and thus shewed how little that repentance is to be depended upon, which is merely extorted by the rack of conscience, and the fear of death." I have no doubt at all of the correctness of this representation, and that it exists in other cases, to an extent of which, perhaps, scarcely any good man, or any good woman is aware.

I take, therefore, the present opportunity, with all seriousness and solemnity of mind, of warning you once more against this deceitful hope, entreating you to go home, and ask whether God the Holy Spirit, has ever wrought a work of repentance, and a saving change in your heart. And if you should find by examination that nothing of the sort is the case, O do not let the year close, do not let the day close, do not let the night pass over you, without humbly beseeching God to have mercy on your souls; and say, "O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon me, a miserable sinner!"

From the whole here is a lesson of distinction. The afflictions of the people of God are of a totally different character from all other afflictions. When you change your character, all afflictions change their character to you. The character of affliction is to be determined by the character of the individual whom they assail. The moment you become a child of God, that moment all afflictions become to you the discipline of a Father, and not the infliction of a Judge. And there are three points of difference between the afflictions of the people of God, and all other afflictions.

In the first place, there is never any wrath in them; never any penal anger; never any punishment for sin in them-mere punishment. How should there be, when Christ their Surety stands between them and God, to receive all the punishment for their guilt? And therefore (which is more than we can say of the afflictions of the unconverted), in all the afflictions of the people of God, in all those afflictions, in the first place, there is not one drop of penal wrath.

Then, in the second place, they are warranted to expect under them divine supports. An unconverted man is not. He may, for aught he know, have to bear them alone; there is not a promise that tells him of divine support. But there are many which bear this divine cordial and support to the people of God in affliction: "When thou passest through the fire, I will be with thee, and through the floods, it shall not overflow thee." Perhaps you never have so much reason to expect the gracious presence of God to you, as when you are in affliction: just as the three young men never had the visible presence of the Son of God in their midst, until they were in the furnace. "As our afflictions abound without"--what says the Apostle?" so our consolations abound also within. And what are afflictions, if we have consolations within to sustain them? What are all the waves of the deluge beating on the ark, while God is with Noah in the midst, and indulging him with his gracious visits?

people of God are warranted to "Our light afflictions, which are

And, thirdly, for all their afflictions, the expect a gracious and abundant recompense. but for a moment, work out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." How work it out? By working in us a greater capacity for enjoyment; for, surely, heaven will be sweeter to none than to the poor afflicted soul: by working in us a ground of comparison and contrast, to set it off. No man ascends to prosperity with so much pleasure, as the man who ascends to it out of the depths of adversity. So will it be with heaven; by working in us a conformity to Jesus Christ. "If we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him." When we are like him in suffering, we shall be like him in glory; and the more we suffer for him, the more will he recompense us in heaven. «Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake; for great is your reward in heaven." Why, really, it is enough almost to make us choose affliction, as Moses did, "choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season," because he had "respect to the recompense of the reward." It is enough to make us try how we may meet with such a cross and try how we can bear it. That was the case with the primitive saints, and with some of the martyrs. A good woman was once seen hurrying along to a certain spot, and the question was asked her where she was hastening to : "O," said she, “there are some Christians to be burnt, and I am afraid I shall be too late to have the honour of martyrdom." And many of the first Christians were grievously disappointed when they missed the honour of martyrdom for the sake of religion.

What a religion is Christianity! How superior does it make a man to all the circumstances of life-how superior to all the attractions of life! Because its comforts and consolations are superior to all its crosses, by its supports and its practice for what can daunt a man who is to gain by his afflictions-who is ambitious of suffering, and even of dying for the sake of Christ? What can the world do to a man who is ambitious of suffering? And what does the Christian hero say to his fellows in their trials?

"Come on, ye partners in distress,

My comrades through the wilderness,
Who still this body fill;

And still forget your griefs and fears,
And look beyond this vale of tears,
To that celestial hill.

We suffer with our Master here;
We shall before his face appear,
And by his side sit down:
To patient faith the prize is sure,
And all that to the end endure

The cross shall wear the crown.
Tears become bliss. Inspiring hope!
It lifts the abject sinner up;

It brings to life the dead.

Our conflict here shall soon be past,
And you and I ascend at last,

Triumphant with our Head."

THE CONFLICT AND THE CONQUEST OF FAITH.

REV. T. J. HOLLOWAY, D.D.

FITZROY CHAPEL, FITZROY SQUARE, DEC. 7, 1834.

"Then said David to the Philistine, Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied."-1 SAMUEL, Xvii. 45.

Ir is not recorded how long David continued in the court of Saul as the king's visitor; and, though his appointed armour-bearer, it does not appear that he was ever employed in that office. We have, however, circumstantial evidence enough to prove that David returned unto Bethlehem, to his father's house, again to feed his sheep, and that some time-I conceive some considerable time-elapsed between that period and the scene which is opened out in the chapter before us: for, as you may read at the close of the chapter, "And when Saul saw David go forth against the Philistine, he said unto Abner, the captain of the host, Abner, whose son is this youth? And Abner said, As thy soul liveth, O king, I cannot tell. And the king said, Inquire thou whose son the stripling is. And as David returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, Abner took him, and brought him before Saul with the head of the Philistine in his hand. And Saul said to him, Whose son art thou, thou young man? And David answered, I am the son of thy servant Jesse, the Bethlehemite." But though he had forgotten David, and was unmindful of his past benefits, yet we find that the Lord thought upon him, and, during this interval, prepared him for the work that was before him. He did not send him into the battle-field before he had matured him for such a conflict; as David himself afterwards testifies: "Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight." Before this he had faced the lion and the bear, and had slaughtered them: and, indeed, as some think, had encountered many a lion and many a bear, in order that thereby he might try how great his strength was when he put his trust in the Lord.

God is not unmindful of any of his anointed ones: he has a work for all his faithful people to do; and, as they go forth with a promise, so do they also carry with them the command, "Occupy till I come." There are no sinecures in his court; there are no drones in his camp. It was a great work to which David was called; there were before him great conflicts, and great triumphs, and great glory; and though the great God was with him, yet he had to fight his way through great trials, great perils, and great enemies-greater and more powerful than any human skill and strength could meet: and therefore he required great

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